Amor
by AshLikeSnow
Summary: Fate can't seem to understand anything or anyone, not even herself. A trivial meeting with a certain blue-eyed girl however, leads her onto her path for self-discovery about life, and about love. Nanoha and Fate friendship.


**Disclaimer:  
**  
These character's aren't mine, and belong to their respective owners, whoever they are.

Just a warning to people that these characters, whilst sharing fundamental characteristics with their originals, do in fact have some OoC-ness to them. I apologize if that offends any one.

**Notes:**

Mentioned characters are 22 years old.

This chapter of beginnings is dedicated to my new betareader Eni Li'Nave. I hope we continue to work well together :3

* * *

A figure sat with a rigid back upright, facing the enemy before her with unblinking eyes, unblinking eyes that held within them a deep anger born from frustration and resentment, and the emotion in those eyes burned bright, brighter even than the already crimson orbs from which they sprang forth. Without warning, she stood up and attacked. Aggressively, carelessly, recklessly, she attacked what was in front of her with abandon. Her motions were desperate, her feelings were violent and her countenance was frenzied. Her enemy had no chance.

Her arm moved tirelessly as she battled, no movement wasted as she struggled, rage coursing through her with every stab, with every slash. Colour erupted onto what was once white as her enemy failed to defend, and bright red flecks splattered all over the floor. Over and over the pattern repeated itself. The tension was reaching breaking point as the fight continued, ever more one-sided as time went on, until finally, she lowered her arm. The fight was over.

Silence reigned, and then...

A clatter on the floor, and a hoarse sob echoed through the room.

She had dropped her weapon.

She couldn't stand the sight in front of her.

She turned and she ran. Ran and left behind her enemy, one of the many hundreds she had fought.

She ran and didn't look back at the emotions she left behind; at the picture of agony she had created.

At the canvas she had covered with blood-like paint.

**Amor  
Chapter I - Irony  
**  
**By AshLikeSnow**

Fate Testarossa was a painter. A painter of fairly high renown in a profession with an esteemed circle who would only grudgingly admit each others works while shamelessly promoting their own. A painter who had seemed to effortlessly create a name for herself with her breathtaking artwork while hardly associating or compromising herself with others who, without success, tried to emulate her. A painter who stood apart from the others to keep her thoughts close to herself, and her emotions even closer. A painter who painted her own world. Yet for all this air of secrecy around her, for all her dammed up emotions when you were to speak to her, one need not look far to realise exactly how she was thinking: her paintings were dark and angry.

In accordance with her air of solitude, she lived alone in an urban apartment, where she spends most of the day. What she does in the long hours spent there is any body's guess, but by the amount of canvas that comes out of it only to be piled into the garbage dumpsters, a logical assumption would be that she paints. Indeed, it appears that she spends an almost unparalleled amount of time creating artworks which she most often seems to dismiss shortly after completing. Only those retaining qualities of which she finds satisfactory are kept, and of those there are only a handful. None of those are kept for herself however, since museums and collectors are quite often turning up at her door, making offers for her pieces, and she appears to part with them without so much as a negligent toss of her head if one happens to be available. If not she simply closes the door in their face.

In short, she was an enigma. An enigma not only to the world, or to the people who knew her, but to herself as well. Though she would deny it, she would question herself about her self. What was she doing and where was she heading? Why was she the way she was and when could she move on? No answers came to her. No answers came to her, so she continued to paint. Paint and pour out her emotions for the world to see, so that one day that answer may find her.

And so one did. An answer that came in the form of one blue-eyed young woman with a bright smile.

* * *

My heels clacked noisily against the polished marble floors as I walked and the sound seemed to reverberate around the expansive room, making me cringe slightly. It was a faux-vaulted room, with a high white ceiling decorated intermittently by chandeliers, giving off an air of grandeur. A feeling of grandeur which I was familiar, but not entirely comfortable with. Stealing furtive glances around me, I noticed a number of small groups of people standing around in the room. Not good, but at least they appeared to be occupied with themselves. I really hated it when my shoes did that, and it's why I especially disliked wearing heels for that matter since they always seemed to be ones at fault. Trying, but failing to lighten my steps because of the people around me, I simply decided to hurry across the hall towards the carpeted area. Some glances were passed from over peoples shoulders, but I guess on the whole I didn't attract too much attention. I breathed a sigh of relief when I completed my escape and slowed back down to a leisurely stroll, better to take in my surroundings, with my steps now muffled by the intricately wrought fabric beneath my feet.

I was in a museum. I was by myself in an art museum glancing from wall to wall, from canvas to canvas as I walked, searching. Having crossed over from the sculptures area into the paintings, I was duly searching for an artwork that I knew should have been here. A notice at the front entrance had mentioned a new piece having been unveiled three days ago, along with a sample picture of it, and that small photo captured me. I was intrigued. I wanted to see it. My eyes roamed and glanced over numerous pieces, ranging from abstract, to genre, to landscape, to Byzantine. Suffice to say, there were simply a lot of different styles here, and even some of which I wasn't entirely familiar with. None of them appeared to be the one I was looking for however, and so slightly dispirited, I moved on to the next room.

My feelings of disappointment quickly turned to excitement however as I looked in to find a framed piece on the wall towards the back, still with curtains drawn beside it and roped off using those metal poles as a barricade on the floor. Only one other person was in the room, and she seemed to be staring at the painting I was wanting to see, with her back towards me - or at least I assumed it was 'she', considering the long blonde hair. Deciding to avert my gaze from the painting to better take it in when I got close, I instead fixed my eyes upon the other visitor besides me.

I realised without a doubt that it really was a she as I moved closer. A fairly tall woman with a ponderously straight posture and fists lightly clenched at her side, she appeared to be at least half a head taller than me, who was only of average height. Her lustrous blonde hair reached down past her waist and almost to her thighs, to be tied towards the end by a simple black ribbon. The rest of her clothes was also black, a long-sleeved collared shirt, tailored pants, and slightly heeled court shoes. With a slight tinge of sympathy, I wondered if she happened to be in mourning.

Finally reaching beside her, I stood a respectful distance away, in case she happened to want privacy for herself to observe in. Breathing slowly, I shifted my eyes from the woman's shoes beside me up to the painting before.

Standing lightly, just behind the red ropes which prevented people from touching the painting, I could only stare up at the work before me in silent wonder.

I came face to face with a portrait. A portrait of a woman I'm sure, but it showed only her eyes and nothing else. And that was enough.

They were luminous eyes, eyes the colour of garnet, eyes that shone with brilliance, eyes that pierced the soul, and for those it was beautiful; yet it was the sensations lurking beneath those obvious visages which most strongly stirred the heart. Frustration, rejection, anger, isolation, and most of all, a deep sense of loneliness and sadness. Such agonised eyes were staring directly out at me, I could hardly bring myself to breathe. So intense were those emotions, and so deeply were they intertwined, I became lost in their wake, drawn in by their violence. Those eyes overwhelmed me, and I gave in without a fight.

My initial feelings of wonder changed as I continued to stare unblinkingly at the painting before me, not into pity I think, for those eyes surely wouldn't have accepted pity and I knew it, but perhaps rather to compassion. I suddenly started crying. Tears streamed freely from my eyes in place of the ones before me, and I let them run. Closing my eyes and holding my hands together before me, I cried unabashed. Surely, it was normal to cry after witnessing something as powerful as this.

I know not how long I stood there, surroundings forgotten, with a pair of brilliantly red eyes in my mind, and emotions whirring in my chest. It felt like forever. I was eventually distracted however, when I felt a subtle sensation, as though I was being watched. I opened my eyes again, only to notice out of the corner of them that the silent woman who was originally standing next to me and gazing at the painting, was now instead staring intently at my face. Turning to face her properly, I returned her gaze, only to feel my breath catch in my throat upon what I saw.

There before me was the face of an angel. Or was it perhaps a goddess? I could not place it. I could not place it, as astounded as I was, but I knew without doubt that she who was before me could not have been of this world. Light, milk-smooth skin which brooked no blemishes and features as though carved my a master sculptor, with high cheekbones, and a petite bow for a mouth, framed against her golden hair, her entire visage was beyond regal, bordering divine. And yet, despite her obvious exquisiteness, I found that what captivated me most were not her countenance, her delicate skin, or her lustrous hair, but her pair of smouldering eyes.

Glowingly red eyes which bore steadily into mine, like she was searching for something, something which she couldn't help but try to seek, but then before I knew it, before I could properly register it, they had softened. I seemed to breathe easier. Those red eyes which looked subdued now as though with only a low ember, had for a brief flicker, looked as intense as the painting which we were standing beside, and my whole body had tensed at that moment, as though frozen. Try as I might, I couldn't trace the feeling which I had felt then. I could not place a name for it; and though it was something that intrigued me, I regretfully let it go. Something of greater importance stood before me.

_Could she have been the model for this painting? Or perhaps the painter herself? But then why was she here looking at her own piece? .. I doubt it. It doesn't really make sense._

But I wanted to know.

Cuffing at the tears which had moments before been leaking out, I screwed up my courage and edged closer to her.

_I'll just warm myself up to the subject.  
_  
"Are you.. This painting, do you like it?" I wasn't sure why I asked that, but I had to start somewhere.

A silence as she continued to peer at me, before a quiet response issued forth.

"Yes."

A short answer. I had another try.

"I noticed you were standing here before I was, have you been looking at this piece a while?" An inclination of my head to the portrait beside us.

Another silence before being followed by a slight nod.

We were backsliding here.

"Do you often come to this museum then?" This museum was the largest in the area after all.

I was getting used to the silence before an answer now.

"Sometimes."

A delighted hum on my part.

"Then I suppose that makes two of us." I replied with a small smile.

She was still peering at me, disregarding my smile, and try though I might, I could only contain myself for so long so I asked out loud "Why were you looking so intently at me earlier?" An impertinent question I suppose, but her scrutiny as well as my own curiosity got the best of me.

Yet again, silence preceded an answer, though not because she was embarrassed by the question it seemed.

".. You were crying."

An honest answer, and I was the one who became flustered.

"I- Mm, well yes, I was. But doesn't it happen at places like this? Paintings or artworks with really strong emotions tend to make people cry." I seemed to be justifying myself now, where before I was crying without shame. Odd.

I was answered with silence again however, as she simply turned back towards the painting and stared at it again.

I waited, but a reply didn't seem to be forthcoming, so I too turned back to stare at the canvas.

".. Does this painting have emotion then?"

_Eh?_

Those words caught me off-guard, and I brought my gaze back towards her, but she had not turned around. She was still intent upon the eyes before her.

"You mean you can't feel them when you're looking at it? The anger, the frustration, the sadness, any of them?" My eyes searched her face. "They're all spilling forth with such strength from those eyes."

She had turned to me again, but with a slight frown of confusion on her brow.

_So she can't she even relate to it? Does this mean that she isn't the painter?_

I tried to explain it a little more.

"Well it's not as though they're written there, but more in the way the eyes are set, the shine of the light in them, the intensity of their colour." Almost as an aside, "The artist must have really felt those emotions to be able to bring it out so well."

I was met with the same perplexed furrow of her eyebrows. She seemed to struggle with those words, and for another brief flicker, her eyes burned, only to disappear again, and her eyes became silent, as though curtains had been drawn closed from within. She averted her gaze.

".. I see."

And with that she turned around and left, back still straight with hair swaying behind her and low heels making no noise upon the carpet.

I was left standing beneath the painting by myself.

_Ok, that was odd. It was almost as though she figured something out for a second there... Hang on. I didn't even get to ask her if she was the painter or not! _

I pouted a little, but then shrugged as I considered it.

_Well it doesn't matter. If she couldn't even feel anything, I don't think it would be her. But still, I wonder what she was doing here in the museum if she can't seem to appreciate the atmosphere. And yet her eyes... they had the same quality to them..._

As those words formed in my head my gaze flicked back towards the portrait before me, and I lost my original train of thought again as my eyes as well as my mind resumed their contemplation of what was before me. There was was simply so much raw emotion contained within those fiery orbs, and so intense that it was like staring directly at the sun. Blazing, dazzling, glaring, blinding, it was all of these and more; and yet despite it, upon closer inspection, I couldn't help but feel as though the feelings evident in those depths seemed to be masking a question, a question which wasn't asked, but poised as though on the tip of the tongue, unspoken, unknown, unanswered. Silently and unerringly I searched for it. Both for the question which eluded and the answer which would compliment it. I stared.

A sudden ring pierced itself into the blanketing silence, and I was forcibly broken out of my musings. Realising where the sound was coming from, I scrambled to fish my phone out of my handbag, and checked the caller ID. It was Suzuka-chan. Flipping it open, I answered it.

"Hello, Suzuka-chan."

_"Nanoha-chan, where are you?" _

"I'm in the art museum, why?"

_"Art museum again? Did you forget that you were supposed to meet up with Arisa-chan and I for lunch today?"_

"Kyaah!"

I squealed. I had totally forgotten.

"I'm so sorry Suzuka-chan!"

_"It's OK Nanoha-chan. Just make sure to get here soon because Arisa-chan hasn't arrived yet, otherwise you're going to get scolded."_ I could practically see her grinning at me through her words.

"OK, I'm coming right now! See you soon Suzuka-chan."

And with that I snapped the phone shut and replaced it into my bag while turning myself around, ready to make a mad dash through the museum. After two steps I slowed down however, and turned back around again to take one last look at the painting which had left so deep an impression upon me. The turbulence within those glowing eyes once again gripped me, but I knew I couldn't linger. I felt myself wrench my gaze away from them, and instead looked down to the golden plaque just below the frame. Reading it slowly to make sure my eyes weren't deceiving me, I couldn't help but feel shocked before a small sad smile touched my lips. The irony was not lost on me.

Satisfied that I would remember them, I turned around yet again and left the painting behind me with but two thoughts in my mind; getting to the cafe in record time to prevent Arisa-chan having a chance to yell at me; and the names engraved on the plaque which now seemed to echo within me.

'Amor'

by  
Fate Testarossa

* * *

**Author's Note (aka the extra long notes):**

A new chapter for a new story. I know some people would much rather I be working on That Day, and I apologise for it, but it seems I've been struck by a slight bout of 'hand-refusing-to-write-even-though-I-know-what-I-want-to-happen'. Oddly enough, it only seems to be affecting that chapter, for I've written slightly on the later ones. I hope it passes soon. But in the mean time, I started on this piece. Originally, I only wrote the intro section as a slight vent for some emotion I happened to be feeling a few days ago. After calming down and considering it a little, I developed a story from it.

As most people will be able to tell, this story is set in an alternate universe where magic plays no part, and quite obviously again, the story will focus on the development of Nanoha and Fate's friendship. No idea on romantic developments, since this project shall be written on whim i.e. written however I like as time progresses. I don't think I really want to make a big project out of this so less planning than for my other fic. The fact that it's a different kind of writing experience makes me happy however, and I've been enjoying it.

And with that said, I just hope that you, the reader, happened to enjoy the beginnings of this new story as well. It's fun having characters not restricted by canonical facts isn't it? breathes a sigh of relief Definitely gives greater chances of branching out and exploring new personas. Anyway, like I said, I hope you enjoyed what I've written, but whether you have or not, I would dearly like for some feedback from you telling me what you thought, and most hopefully it will be constructive so that I may improve. )

I think I'll leave it there, since I realise I tend to be long winded. Till I see you guys and girls next then.

Ash.

PS. For any passing creative arts entusiasts out there wondering what type of painting it was, it was a Rococo-esque piece; only because I imagined the detail and the colours to be of a Baroque nature, but deemed the content to be more in the followings of the former. If any would like to make suggestions or amendments, please feel free to let me know, since I admit I have only a passing knowledge on these subjects.


End file.
